


Night's Silence

by Harukami



Category: Death Note
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-20
Updated: 2005-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Night's Silence</b><br/>
Death Note<br/>
Near/Mello<br/>
No spoilers, safe for work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night's Silence

  
This is the hour of night he most enjoys; it's quiet everywhere in the orphanage, and the dim moonlight casts shadows long in the library, so there's nothing much to see by except the flat light of the computer screen. He doesn't type slowly, but he types softly. It's not that anyone would be up and passing by to notice him, but it lets him enjoy the quiet more.

He saves on page twelve and rises, putting the computer into password-protected mode as he heads down to the cafeteria. This is the other reason he likes working at that hour; he ignores the main area and opens the door to the staff room, goes on the tips of his toes to reach the shelf, takes down a styrofoam cup, pours himself a cup of coffee.

It's cold, but he's rather used to the taste of cold coffee and it's thick and sharp as it fills his mouth. He finishes it slowly, drops the cup in the trash, heads back to the library.

As he goes, he passes a window and sees movement; he stops to look.

Outside, Mello is seated on one of the parts of the orphanage fence that lacks the spikes keeping things out or things in. Over the years, parts of the fence had been destroyed and rebuilt without them, other parts had been pressed down; some five years ago one particularly rebellious student had even taken a saw to them.

Not that anyone particularly minds the look, and not that anyone ever tries to escape, but perhaps it's about the symbolism; Near never really cares much about those things himself.

He watches out the window for a few moments, to see if Mello's going to head off, sneak into the city at night, but Mello's just seated, facing away from Near and the orphanage, apparently staring up at the moon. As he wears all black, his hands and the back of his neck and the brightness of his hair seem to almost float in nothing, some sort of repulsive horror story to frighten most children with.

Near turns away and returns to the library. There is a part of him that is disappointed; he works on his schoolwork on these hours so that Mello will not know when or how he works, so that Mello might think all the marks come to Near without any effort on his part, but if Mello is up during these times, he will know Near is absent.

Though perhaps he doesn't know why, and perhaps it doesn't matter; perhaps Mello's just taking advantage of Near's absence to get some fresh air.

Still, Near thinks, it's a little bit of a disappointment; if Mello were to know Near was gone, Near had always thought Mello would be looking for him.

***

When winter comes, Mello has to start spending his nights indoors. He resents this; he resents it more than the sleep he loses by staying outside. He can function -- does function -- on two to three hours a night, but he can't function without a chance to get away, for a few hours, from -- this.

He rolls over in bed hard and pretends he hadn't noticed that the violence of the motion woke Near in the next bed; Near's breathing -- loud, goddammit, everything's so loud at night when all the background noises are quiet -- has changed in its pace.

Eventually Near gets up and leaves, as Near's likely to do and Mello clenches his fingers; it's just fine for _Near_ , Near who never wants to go outside to begin with, to get up and find himself a place where he doesn't have to always listen to other people breathing. There's no snow indoors, or ice, or --

It's worth going out anyway. This is a bit of rebellion and he thinks that he hasn't been sick in a while; he wouldn't mind getting sick again soon. You don't know what it's like to be healthy until you're sick, and he's always liked those first moments of realizing he's coming down with something -- the headache, the sensitive skin, the tickle in the throat.

He prefers the feeling when he gets better, though, the realization of being _all right_ that just can't be got otherwise. When he's too used to the sneezing and the watering and the sore throat to be anything but surprised and relieved by an absence of those.

The outdoors air is bitingly chill and draws his skin into gooseflesh, his nipples into hardness, his breath into a sharp stabbing pain in his throat. He wades through snow up to his knees and ignores the way his feet are going numb; he finds handholds on the walls with reddened fingers and hauls himself up; he nearly falls over the other side with the ice lining the rail.

He finds himself a seat, curls his feet together for warmth, stares out.

It's beautiful out here tonight; something he couldn't have seen if he were inside, probably. Not the way the thick flakes fall like down from heaven, not the way his breath forms visual fog in front of him, not the way the chill silences everything and the moon is more clear and sharp than he remembers having seen it before.

He tilts his head back and lets the snow strike his face, waits for the tension to drain from his shoulders.

Some time later, light is cast behind him -- Mello twists a little and sees that the door is opened and Near is standing in it.

He feels almost sick with resentment; Near won't let him alone even at this time, will he? There's nowhere he can go to get away from Near. Mello thinks Near's like a ghost -- the one reason he'd rather beat Near than kill him is that he thinks Near might follow him forever that way.

Mello slides off the wall, stumbles on the ice, goes down in a flail of ungainly limbs. He's picked up bruises from the fall; they won't show for a day or two but he can feel them already starting. He picks himself back up again easily, though, and wades through the snow back towards Near.

"What?" he demands in a hiss when he's close enough.

Near looks uncomfortable, tugging on his hair, glancing down, his skin clearly chilled just from the wind blowing in from outside, even mostly inside the building as he is. "You should come in. You'll make yourself sick."

"What do you care?" Mello snapped. "I'm already sick, aren't I?"

Near turns away. "There's coffee," he says. "In the staff room. It's cold, but you just have to turn it on to heat it up again."

Mello watches him disappear back into the library, and rubs his arms; now he's inside there's no point going back out, and he's cold now, and wet.

Coffee doesn't really sound that bad.


End file.
